Diabetes and a Low Carb Diet

Dr Atkins was the first doctor to recommend a low carbohydrate diet to help people with diabetes. He recommended a VERY low carb diet. Carb is short for carbohydrate.
Carbohydrates are in starchy and sweet foods like flour and sugar. In the Western world our food is mostly made up of grains and sugar. Grains are ground up to make flour. Flour is made into baked goods like

• bread
• cake
• biscuits
• buns
• pizza bases
• donuts
• bagels

Cereals can include modified grains like Cornflakes and Rice Bubbles. Other cereals are made from flours eg Fruit Loops or Nutrigrain.

There is a train of thought saying that extruded grains, for example, corn flakes are bad for you.

It is better to eat rolled oats, not quick oats. Rolled oats  take more time for the body to digest.

Sugar
Normal breakfast cereal breaks down quickly and is often full of sugar. Check out the list of ingredients in different brands eg Cocopops and Fruit Loops to see how much sugar is in these products.

Cans of soda, bubbly drinks and cordial are all full of sugar. Flavoured drinks are also full of sugar. You know they taste nice. This is why.

Blood Glucose Levels
When there are a lot of readily available carbs in your diet, they break down into your blood stream very quickly. They do give you a quick boost of energy which also fades away quickly. However they also affect the level of glucose in your body. These high and low levels of glucose affect your pancreas. It is busily working away to make the insulin needed to cope with all the extra sweetness in your blood stream. The insulin helps your cells absorb the glucose.

When there is excess glucose in the body that the insulin can't take care of, it tucks it away neatly in fat cells in your body and so you put on weight.

We do need carbohydrates in our body. They give us energy. But we don't need anywhere near the amount of carbs our Western diet, manufacturers and advertisers tell us we need.

Does your diet look like this?
Sadly this diet is typical of thousands of people. It is full of sugar and starchy foods.

Breakfast - toast, cereal, sugar in tea/coffee
Mid morning - biscuits, sugar in tea/coffee or a can of soda
Lunch - sandwiches or pastry eg pie or sausage roll, hamburger in bun, sugar in tea/coffee
Mid afternoon - pastry, cake or sugary snack, sugar in tea/coffee or can of lemonade
Dinner - pasta or pizza, potatoes, rice eg boiled, fried or risotto, ice cream, sweet pie, sweet pudding or jelly
Supper - milo (sugar and cereal), dry biscuit or crackers or sugar in tea/coffee



References:

• Low-carb Living for Families by Monique le Roux Forslund
• Low carb grocery shopping
• Graphics by Therese Vahland